GRE新题型-语文部分.doc

GRE新题型-语文部分

Revised GRE General Test
Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions (1-5)
These sample questions are like the ones that will appear on the revised GRE General Test. They are non-interactive and are for viewing only. The sample questions are available in alternate format for test takers with disabilities.

For the following questions, select the two answer choices that, when used to complete the sentence, fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole and produce completed sentences that are alike in meaning.
1. It is truly paradoxical that the Amazon, the lushest of all rainforests, is rooted in the most                    of all soils.
A. acidic
B. coarse
C. stark
D. impoverished
E. infertile
F. austere
2. Cynics believe that people who                    compliments do so in order to be praised twice.
A. conjure up
B. covet
C. deflect
D. grasp
E. shrug off
F. understand
3. A restaurant's menu is generally reflected in its decor; however, despite this restaurant's                    appearance it is pedestrian in the menu it offers.
A. elegant
B. tawdry
C. modern
D. traditional
E. conventional
F. chic
4. International financial issues are typically                    by the United States media because they are too technical to make snappy headlines and too inaccessible to people who lack a background in economics.
A. neglected
B. slighted
C. overrated
D. hidden
E. criticized
F. repudiated
5. While in many ways their personalities could not have been more different — she was ebullient where he was glum, relaxed where he was awkward, garrulous where he was                    — they were surprisingly well suited.
A. solicitous
B. munificent
C. irresolute
D. laconic
E. fastidious
F. taciturn

Revised GRE General Test
Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions (6-8)
Questions 6 through 8 are based on the following reading passage.
Music critics have consistently defined James P. Johnson as a great early jazz pianist, originator of the 1920's Harlem "stride" style, and an important blues and jazz composer. In addition, however, Johnson was an innovator in classical music, composing symphonic music that incorporated American, and especially African-American, traditions.
Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud's and Gershwin's experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson's own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.
6. The passage states that Johnson composed all of the following EXCEPT
A. jazz works
B. popular songs
C. symphonic music
D. spirituals
E. blues pieces
7. Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
The author suggests which of the following about most classical composers of the early 1920's?
A. They were strongly influenced by the musical experiments of Milhaud and Gershwin.
B. They had little working familiarity with such forms of American music as jazz, blues, and popular songs
C. They made few attempts to introduce innovations into the classical symphonic tradition
8. The author suggests that most critics have
A. underrated the popularity of Yamekraw
B. undervalued Johnson's musical abilities
C. had little interest in Johnson's influence on jazz
D. had little regard for classical works that incorporate popular music
E. neglected Johnson's contribution to classical symphonic music
Revised GRE General Test
Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions (9-10)
Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following reading passage.
Scholarship on political newspapers and their editors is dominated by the view that as the United States grew, the increasing influence of the press led, ultimately, to the neutral reporting from which we benefit today. Pasley considers this view oversimplified, because neutrality was not a goal of early national newspaper editing, even when editors disingenuously stated that they aimed to tell all sides of a story. Rather, the intensely partisan ideologies represented in newspapers of the early republic led to a clear demarcation between traditional and republican values. The editors responsible for the papers' content — especially those with republican agendas — began to see themselves as central figures in the development of political consciousness in the United States.
9. Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
The passage suggests that Pasley would agree with which of the following statements about the political role of newspapers?
A. Newspapers today are in many cases much less neutral in their political reporting than is commonly held by scholars.
B. Newspapers in the early United States normally declared quite openly their refusal to tell all sides of most political stories.
C. The editorial policies of some early United States newspapers became a counterweight to proponents of traditional values.
10. In the context in which it appears, "disingenuously" most nearly means
A. insincerely
B. guilelessly
C. obliquely
D. resolutely
E. pertinaciously
Revised GRE General Test
Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions (11-15)
For the following questions, select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
11. Far from viewing Jefferson as a skeptical but enlightened intellectual, historians of the 1960’s portrayed him as                    thinker, eager to fill the young with his political orthodoxy while censoring ideas he did not like.
o an adventurous
o a doctrinaire
o an eclectic
o a judicious
o a cynical
12. Murray, whose show of recent paintings and drawings is her best in many years, has been eminent hereabouts for a quarter century, although often regarded with (i)                   , but the most (ii)                   of these paintings (iii)                   all doubts.
Blank (i)
o partiality
o credulity
o ambivalence
Blank (ii)
o problematic
o successful
o disparaged

Blank (iii)
o exculpate
o assuage
o whet
13. The (i)                   nature of classical tragedy in Athens belies the modern image of tragedy: in the modern view tragedy is austere and stripped down, its representations of ideological and emotional conflicts so superbly compressed that there’s nothing (ii)                   for time to erode.
Blank (i)
o unadorned
o harmonious
o multifaceted
Blank (ii)
o inalienable
o exigent
o extraneous
14. Dramatic literature often                    the history of a culture in that it takes as its subject matter the important events that have shaped and guided the culture.
o confounds
o repudiates
o recapitulates
o anticipates
o polarizes
15. New technologies often begin by (i)                   what has gone before, and they change the world later. Think how long it took power-using companies to recognize that with electricity they did not need to cluster their machinery around the power source, as in the days of steam. Instead, power could be (ii)                   their processes. In that sense, many of today’s computer networks are still in the steam age. Their full potential remains unrealized.
Blank (i)
o uprooting
o dismissing
o mimicking
Blank (ii)
o transmitted to
o consolidated around
o incorporated into
Revised GRE General Test
Verbal Reasoning Sample Questions (16-18)
Questions 16 through 18 are based on the following reading passage.
In Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry does not reject integration or the economic and moral promise of the American dream; rather, she remains loyal to this dream while looking, realistically, at its incomplete realization. Once we recognize this dual vision, we can accept the play's ironic nuances as deliberate social commentaries by Hansberry rather than as the "unintentional" irony that Bigsby attributes to the work. Indeed, a curiously persistent refusal to credit Hansberry with a capacity for intentional irony has led some critics to interpret the play's thematic conflicts as mere confusion, contradiction, or eclecticism. Isaacs, for example, cannot easily reconcile Hansberry's intense concern for her race with her ideal of human reconciliation. But the play's complex view of Black self-esteem and human solidarity as compatible is no more "contradictory" than Du Bois's famous, well-considered ideal of ethnic selfawareness coexisting with human unity, or Fanon's emphasis on an ideal internationalism that also accommodates national identities and roles.
16. The author's primary purpose in the passage is to
A. explain some critics' refusal to consider Raisin in the Sun a deliberately ironic play
B. suggest that ironic nuances ally Raisin in the Sun with Du Bois's and Fanon's writings
C. analyze the fundamental dramatic conflicts in Raisin in the Sun
D. emphasize the inclusion of contradictory elements in Raisin in the Sun
E. affirm the thematic coherence underlying Raisin in the Sun
17. The author of the passage would probably consider which of the following judgments to be most similar to the reasoning of the critics described in the highlighted sentence?
A. The world is certainly flat; therefore, the person proposing to sail around it is unquestionably foolhardy.
B. Radioactivity cannot be directly perceived; therefore, a scientist could not possibly control it in a laboratory.
C. The painter of this picture could not intend it to be funny; therefore, its humor must result from a lack of skill.
D. Traditional social mores are beneficial to culture; therefore, anyone who deviates from them acts destructively.
E. Filmmakers who produce documentaries deal exclusively with facts; therefore, a filmmaker who reinterprets particular events is misleading us.
18. Click on the sentence in the passage in which the author provides examples that reinforce an argument against a critical response cited earlier in the passage.
Rain-soaked soil contains less oxygen than does drier soil. The roots of melon plants perform less efficiently under the low-oxygen conditions present in rain-soaked soil. When the efficiency of melon roots is impaired, the roots do not supply sufficient amounts of the proper nutrients for the plants to perform photosynthesis at their usual levels. It follows that melon plants have a lower-than-usual rate of photosynthesis when their roots are in rain-soaked soil. When the photosynthesis of the plants slows, sugar stored in the fruits is drawn off to supply the plants with energy. Therefore, ripe melons harvested after a prolonged period of heavy rain should be less sweet than other ripe melons.
19. In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
A. The first states the conclusion of the argument as a whole; the second provides support for that conclusion.
B. The first provides support for the conclusion of the argument as a whole; the second provides evidence that supports an objection to that conclusion.
C. The first provides support for an intermediate conclusion that supports a further conclusion stated in the argument; the second states that intermediate conclusion.
D. The first serves as an intermediate conclusion that supports a further conclusion stated in the argument; the second states the position that the argument as a whole opposes.
E. The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second supports the conclusion of the argument.
20. Most artists maintain an attitude of (i)                   toward their own work. They know, better than any critic would know, how their art (ii)                   their ambitions. The artist would demand of his admirer, Do you really think this is the best I am capable of? Henri Cartier-Bresson's dismissal of his life's work in photography, however, is (iii)                   : it seems almost contempt, or even hatred, not just for his achievement but for the medium itself.
Blank (i)
A. extraordinary hubris
B. irremediable disdain
C. healthy disrespect
Blank (ii)
D. falls far short of
E. eventually transcends
F. subtly realizes
Blank (iii)
G. entirely comprehensible
H. at another level altogether
I. at odds with his achievement
21. There has been much hand-wringing about how unprepared American students are for college. Graff reverses this perspective, suggesting that colleges are unprepared for students. In his analysis, the university culture is largely (i)                   entering students because academic culture fails to make connections to the kinds of arguments and cultural references that students grasp. Understandably, many students view academic life as (ii)                   ritual.
Blank (i)
A. primed for
B. opaque to
C. essential for
Blank (ii)
D. an arcane
E. a laudable
F. a painstaking
22. Personal sacrifice without the promise of immediate gain is an anomaly in this era when a sense of                    is the most powerful predisposition shaping individual actions.
A. fairness
B. humanitarianism
C. causality
D. ambiguity
E. entitlement
23. For a philosopher of the analytic tradition, Williams' approach is somewhat (i)                   . Unlike most analytic philosophers, Williams has not kept himself (ii)                   the rest of the humanities; in fact, he wishes to address colleagues in other fields in terms that will make sense to them. In particular, he objects to the (iii)                   character of analytic philosophy: the amount it tries to accomplish by conceptual analysis and a priori argument alone. Williams is convinced that philosophy must use history, including historical imagination, to understand and defend values of any kind.
Blank (i)
A. oracular
B. unorthodox
C. bland
Blank (ii)
D. aloof from
E. conversant with
F. exposed to
Blank (iii)
G. meticulously inclusive
H. strongly ahistorical
I. overly contentious
For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with peopl